What property of the universe leads us to conclude that it required a cause to exist?

[Hooding_Trees]

God is not contingent being. God is necessary being. I hope you understand the difference. God is being, being in the truest sense. Let’s look at Saint Thomas’ argument from contingency in syllogistic form. Tell me what’s wrong in your estimation with the premises:

(1) Contingent things exist.
(2) Each contingent thing has a time at which it fails to exist (contingent things are not omnipresent).
(3) So, if everything were contingent, there would be a time at which nothing exists (call this an empty time).
(4) That empty time would have been in the past.
(5) If the world were empty at one time, it would be empty forever after (a conservation principle).
(6) So, if everything were contingent, nothing would exist now.
(7) But clearly, the world is not empty (premise 1).
(8) So there exists a being who is not contingent.
(9) Hence, God exists.

Absolutely correct. Either definite articles need a creator of they don’t. You can’t just say that everything needs a creator and then miraculously forget to include bog. Either everything needs a creator or it doesn’t but bog is part of everything as per the laws of non contradiction and excluded middle.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

If we have free will, our actions are uncaused. I do not see, then, any problem with the idea that the Universe is uncaused.

 

[davidv]

Interesting.

In your blind, flailing, burbon fulelled stupor, you have just succeeded in cementing the position that God requires a creator…

Kudos to you sir.

Except “thing” isn’t as you perceive it to be.
Do you have anything besides name calling to contribute?

 

[awatkins69]

If we have free will, our actions are uncaused. I do not see, then, any problem with the idea that the Universe is uncaused.

Except we don’t exist but by being moved by something previously in motion, in this case, our parents.

 

[awatkins69]

Absolutely correct. Either definite articles need a creator of they don’t. You can’t just say that everything needs a creator and then miraculously forget to include bog. Either everything needs a creator or it doesn’t but bog is part of everything as per the laws of non contradiction and excluded middle.

No…Contingent beings need a cause. If the being is necessary then it must have no potentiality. It would be pure act, thus requiring no mover. So you still need to show me where the premises are wrong…

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Except we don’t exist but by being moved by something previously in motion, in this case, our parents.

The point is that our actions are essentially uncaused and are therefore not contingent beings. Thus, it is possible for there to be beings which are not contingent.

 

[awatkins69]

The point is that our actions are essentially uncaused and are therefore not contingent beings. Thus, it is possible for there to be beings which are not contingent.

Again, we wouldn’t be doing actions if we were not caused to be by our parents, or if we had not been given an intellect by God.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Again, we wouldn’t be doing actions if we were not caused to be by our parents, or if we had not been given an intellect by God.

You mean, our ability to act, not the actions themselves.

 

[awatkins69]

You mean, our ability to act, not the actions themselves.

Yeah. The power of free will is definitely caused. The will in action is in a certain sense caused as well, but we still have free agency. The will moves in accordance with its proper object, which is the good. Since the motion has an object in view, it has a final cause. If the motion does not have an object in view then it is not a volition.

I’m sorry if I’m not good at explaining. If you’re interested in this sort of thing you can look at the treatise on Man in the Summa Theologica here:

newadvent.org/summa/1.htm

 

[KyivAndrew]

My claim has been soundly substantiated. It has given us everything from brain surgery to the cavity magnetron to the very computer that you’re typing on. It has expanded the human lifespan, it has let us probe the very smallest and very largest scales of space and time, it has let us travel anywhere on the planet in a timely fashion, it has given us the haber process that let’s us feed everyone we want to feed in the world.

That is science. Science built the modern world.

My field is in science and engineering. The study of Philosophy would be as much use to me in it as the study of Newtonian mechanics and trigononmetry would be to Cliff Thorburn.

O.K. Well for a change, let’s let the below-quoted agnostic Ron Rosenbaum respond to the claims of atheism:

"Faith-based atheism? Yes, alas. Atheists display a credulous and childlike faith, worship a certainty as yet unsupported by evidence—the certainty that they can or will be able to explain how and why the universe came into existence. (And some of them can behave as intolerantly to heretics who deviate from their unproven orthodoxy as the most unbending religious Inquisitor.)

Faced with the fundamental question: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” atheists have faith that science will tell us eventually. Most seem never to consider that it may well be a philosophic, logical impossibility for something to create itself from nothing. But the question presents a fundamental mystery that has bedeviled (so to speak) philosophers and theologians from Aristotle to Aquinas. Recently scientists have tried to answer it with theories of “multiverses” and “vacuums filled with quantum potentialities,” none of which strikes me as persuasive

Atheists have no evidence—and certainly no proof!—that science will ever solve the question of why there is something rather than nothing. Just because other difficult-seeming problems have been solved does not mean all difficult problems will always be solved.

In fact, I challenge any atheist, New or old, to send me their answer to the question: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” I can’t wait for the evasions to pour forth. Or even the evidence that this question ever could be answered by science and logic.

The verbal vitriol and vituperation that self-proclaimed New Atheists indulge in in the comments section of crusading atheist and Selfish Gene author Richard Dawkins’ blog recently caused Dawkins himself, horrified by the not excessively “bright” mob he’d created, to shut down his comments section. (The concern was attacks on my fellow Templeton Cambridge fellow Chris Mooney who is a pro-science atheist but not an “incompatibilist,” a nonsense term I don’t have the patience to explain but for which they wanted his blood.)"

slate.com/id/2258484/pagenum/all/

Now, I have specifically chosen from an agnostic with whom I may disagree on certain issues but Ron Rosenbaum’s shots on atheism seem pretty accurate…i.e. fallacious claims that science has built the world all on its own and, implicitly, will be able to explain everything (who needs philosophy as the poster in question asked, absolutely being unaware that some of the great scientists have also been philosophers and pondered and wrote on existence’s greater questions and purpose.) I guess pretty soon we shall come up with a scientific “empirically-verified” morality code for humanity. sheesh

 

[Moonstruck888]

(1) Contingent things exist.

Agreed.

(2) Each contingent thing has a time at which it fails to exist (contingent things are not omnipresent).

That is an untestable assumption.

(3) So, if everything were contingent, there would be a time at which nothing exists (call this an empty time).

No. Energy must always have existed.

(4) That empty time would have been in the past.

There was no empty time.

(6) So, if everything were contingent, nothing would exist now.
(7) But clearly, the world is not empty (premise 1).
(8) So there exists a being who is not contingent.
(9) Hence, God exists.

I stopped replying to these one by one because by point (5), on a scale of one to ten on the absurdity faffometer this had reached a fifty three.

 

[Moonstruck888]

"Faith-based atheism? Yes, alas. Atheists display a credulous and childlike faith, worship a certainty as yet unsupported by evidence—the certainty that they can or will be able to explain how and why the universe came into existence.

Faced with the fundamental question: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” atheists have faith that science will tell us eventually.

Atheists have no evidence—and certainly no proof!—that science will ever solve the question of why there is something rather than nothing. Just because other difficult-seeming problems have been solved does not mean all difficult problems will always be solved.

I have no interest in engaging in the futile fools errand of making an attempt at answering the question of why there is something rather than nothing. My interest is in pointing out the foolishness and mendacity of those who claim they can answer that question.

In fact, I challenge any atheist, New or old, to send me their answer to the question: “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

Now, I have specifically chosen from an agnostic with whom I may disagree on certain issues but Ron Rosenbaum’s shots on atheism seem pretty accurate…i.e. fallacious claims that science has built the world all on its own and, implicitly, will be able to explain everything (who needs philosophy as the poster in question asked, absolutely being unaware that some of the great scientists have also been philosophers and pondered and wrote on existence’s greater questions and purpose.) I guess pretty soon we shall come up with a scientific “empirically-verified” morality code for humanity. sheesh

I fully acknowledge that it is perfectly possible to be an atheist scientist and still be an idiot. If atheists wish to make idiotic claims that science will be able to explain everything, I feel no responisibility for those claims. I have nothing in common with other atheists aside from the fact that I do not see any evidence to support claims that divine invigilation is occurring.

When it comes to myself and other atheists, “we” are not a we.

 

[awatkins69]

Agreed.

Good.

That is an untestable assumption.

Please explain to me how something can be in actuality if it was not first reduced from potentiality to that state by something already in actuality. This is the basic causal principle.

No. Energy must always have existed.

It’s not logically necessary that energy must always have existed. It could have just as well not have. In other words, it is contingent.

There was no empty time.

If everything were contingent, there would have been.

I stopped replying to these one by one because by point (5), on a scale of one to ten on the absurdity faffometer this had reached a fifty three.

Not much to say. Reductio ad ridiculum.

 

[Moonstruck888]

Please explain to me how something can be in actuality if it was not first reduced from potentiality to that state by something already in actuality. This is the basic causal principle.

How much would could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? How long is a piece of string? What colour is the wind?

I don’t know. Neither do you. Neither of us will ever know.

It’s not logically necessary that energy must always have existed. It could have just as well not have. In other words, it is contingent.

The law of conservation of energy predicts that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. That prediction agrees with experience. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, ergo it must always have existed.

 

[awatkins69]

How much would could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? How long is a piece of string? What colour is the wind?

I don’t know. Neither do you. Neither of us will ever know.

It’s a valid question. Almost the entire understanding of science is based on this causal principle…

The law of conservation of energy predicts that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. That prediction agrees with experience. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, ergo it must always have existed.

I agree that Newton’s laws are true. However you are confusing truth and necessity. In a logical sense it is not necessary. There is a difference. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possible_world#Possibility.2C_necessity.2C_and_contingency
In this case it would fall under “contingent propositions”.

 

[Moonstruck888]

It’s a valid question. Almost the entire understanding of science is based on this causal principle…

It’s an unanswerable question.

In a logical sense it is not necessary.

That is of no consequence to me. My criteria of belief is that a hypothesis must make predictions that agree with repeatable experimental ratification.

 

[tonyrey]

The law of conservation of energy predicts that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. That prediction agrees with experience. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, ergo it must always have existed.

You are making at least three unverifiable assumptions:

1. Physical energy is the sole form of energy.
2. The physical universe is eternal.
3. The principle of induction is absolute.

 

[awatkins69]

It’s an unanswerable question.

Not quite. We can prove that something can only be reduced from potentiality to actuality only by something in actuality because the gap between being and not being is infinite. To criticize the premises you must prove it wrong.

That is of no consequence to me. My criteria of belief is that a hypothesis must make predictions that agree with repeatable experimental ratification.

I’d hope that logic is of consequence to you, because that is the basis we come to conclusions about God on. If you are not concerned with logic at least do not pontificate on God’s existence. Certainly I’d recommend not shooting from the hip while trying to criticize logical premises, when the logicality of those premises is of no importance to you. As for your second sentence, I’d like to know the basis upon which you recognize any a priori knowledge. Unless of course you reject all a priori knowledge, thus leaving you without mathematics, making nearly all science entirely unintelligible. Or how about logic, universals, morality, nature of being, etc?

 

[MindOverMatter2]

However **all being that exist **ARE dependent on a cause that is independent of their being.

How did you infer this conclusion? This is just an assertion.

INCLUDING YOUR GOD!

This conclusion is derived from a false premise. Nobody said that everything needs a cause, which is obviously false. If a thing begins to exist or proceeds into being potentially, then it requires a cause independent of its potential being. I suggest that you read my posts properly instead of making your self look silly.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

When you exempt him you break the premise on which your argument is based.

I am not aware that anybody on this thread has based their argument on “your” invented premise. If you want to engage honestly in debate, i suggest that you stop attributing straw-men to other peoples arguments.